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“Snow” Introduction
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"Snow" is an early poem by Louis MacNeice, first published in 1935, that examines nothing less than the nature of existence itself. Looking out a bay window, the poem's speaker is suddenly struck by the stark contrast between the white snow falling outside and some pink roses (presumably inside on the window sill). This sight makes the speaker think about how vast, wildly diverse, and mysterious the world is.
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“Snow” Summary
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The speaker is in a room that's suddenly filled with vibrance as snow falls outside a large bay window, against which also lean some pink roses. These two things were quietly part of the same world, yet they totally clashed. The world sneaks up on us sooner than people would like.
The world is bigger and more bizarre than people think, the speaker says, and people fail to realize how stubbornly diverse it is. The speaker peels a tangerine and splits it into different segments, then spits out the seeds while eating it and feels giddy from the knowledge that one thing can be all many things at once (or that many different things can exist at the same time).
The fire blazes and bubbles. The world is both meaner and happier than people imagine, and people take it in through their senses of taste, sight, hearing, and touch. The glass of the window isn't the only thing standing between the snow and the massive roses.
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“Snow” Themes
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The Diversity and Variety of the World
Louis MacNeice has said that the mysterious "Snow" is about "the realization of a very obvious fact, that one thing is different from another." Indeed, seeing white snow pile up outside a window alongside “pink roses” makes the poem's speaker think about how surprising, diverse, and contradictory the world can be. Put simply, the poem seems to comment on the strangeness and excitement of living in a reality that's "suddener," "crazier," and more "various" than people tend to acknowledge.
The poem opens with the speaker being struck by a "suddenly rich" image: accumulating "snow" on one side of a "great bay-window" alongside “pink roses.” These two opposing objects—the white, wintry snow and the colorful, summery roses—seem "incompatible," suggesting to the speaker that the world is composed of individual elements that stubbornly refuse to reconcile themselves into a neat whole.
And yet, these objects are also "collateral," a word that can refer to things existing side-by-side or to things that share an ancestor via different lines. And roses and snow do, in a sense, come from the same place: both are tied to the seasonal changes caused by the rotation of the earth. At the heart of the poem, then, seems to be an epiphany that the world is “incorrigibly plural”—inevitably filled with diversity and variety that exists in the same space.
The poem also implies that people don't tend to notice or appreciate how bizarre and "various" the world truly is. The speaker talks about eating a tangerine, for example, before noting that even this specific fruit isn’t actually a single, unified object; it’s filled with individual “pips,” or seeds, that the speaker must “spit” out. The tangerine is both whole and made up of fragmented parts, both edible and inedible. And, to the speaker, there's something both giddy and dizzying about that sense of plurality—a feeling the speaker calls "The drunkenness of things being various."
Similarly, the speaker says that the world is "more spiteful and gay than one supposes"—meaning the world is both crueler and more joyful than people tend to think. This might seem impossible—how can the world be both meaner and nicer at the same time? But maybe that's the speaker’s point: though the speaker refers to "World" as if it were a single, complete thing, the poem is perhaps really about how that way of seeing reality is subjective and incomplete, because the world is in fact filled with opposing entities that seem to impossibly, yet inevitably, co-exist.
The speaker seems to reference this mysterious truth about reality when declaring that there is "more than glass" between themselves and the sight of the snow/roses. The speaker might also be talking about the limits of human perception here, suggesting that there's more to the world, more dividing lines between individual entities, than people can perceive. Or, maybe, the speaker is saying essentially the opposite: that there's more connecting these individual entities than people ever realize.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-12
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Snow”
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Lines 1-2
The room was ...
... roses against itWhen the poem begins, readers can picture the speaker in a room watching as snow falls outside a bay window (which is just the same for a certain kind of window that projects outward from a wall in an arc). There are some "pink roses" against the window too, presumably inside the speaker's room. (Or, perhaps, this is a freak spring snowstorm, and both snow and roses are outside and separated from the speaker by this window—the poem's language is ambiguous!)
The speaker, it seems, was already in this room before the poem began, but "suddenly" sees it all with fresh eyes. It's unclear if the falling snow itself is what prompts this sudden shift in perspective or if it comes out of nowhere.
Either way, it's like the world announces itself anew at this moment, causing the speaker to marvel at its "variousness," expressed through the juxtaposition of the snow and roses. There's something about the contrasts within this image—the chilly whiteness of the snow and the fresh vibrancy of the "pink roses"—that makes the room feel more vibrant and interesting.
Note how the sounds of the poem emphasize the speaker's sudden wonder:
- For example, listen to the alliteration between "room" and "rich" and the assonance of "great bay-window." Such devices elevate the speaker's language and hint to the reader that something major is happening.
- The soft sibilance of "Spawning snow" then evokes the gentle, whispery whoosh of now coming down.
- The enjambment between lines 1 and 2, meanwhile, suggests the suddenness of the speaker's revelation. There's no pause between "was" and "Spawning," a choice that makes the poem's opening seem breathless and exciting.
"Spawning" is also an intriguing word choice. It perhaps suggests a visual similarity between the snow's patterns against the window and the appearance of eggs laid by frogs, fish, and so on. It's a weird word—which is kind of the poem's point: the world is a strange place! The word also subtly connects the inanimate snow to the living roses, perhaps reminding readers that, however different these items seem, they're both children of (spawned by!) the natural world.
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Lines 3-4
Soundlessly collateral and ...
... we fancy it.
Unlock all 395 words of this analysis of Lines 3-4 of “Snow,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.
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Lines 5-8
World is crazier ...
... things being various. -
Lines 9-10
And the fire ...
... than one supposes— -
Lines 11-12
On the tongue ...
... the huge roses.
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“Snow” Symbols
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The Window
The "great bay-window" symbolizes both the connection and the division between all the "various" "things" that make up the world.
The window, of course, quite literally stands between the speaker and the world outside the speaker's room. It's not entirely clear whether the roses that lean against the window are also inside with the speaker, or if in the strange world of this poem it's somehow snowing while roses are still in bloom outside. In any case, the window is a physical barrier that the speaker can't cross.
In this way, it seems to represent the barriers that divide various elements of the world (perhaps including those barriers that keep various groups of people apart).
At the same time, the speaker can see through the window. In fact, it's through this window that the speaker sees the scene that sets the poem in motion. In this way, the window connects the speaker with the snow and roses, presenting these two "collateral and incompatible" things at the same time. Were the window not there, the speaker wouldn't be able to see the snow falling at all!
The window thus isn't just standing "between" the snow and roses in the sense of physically dividing them, but it's also connecting them—allowing the speaker to see the world's "various[ness]."
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “the great bay-window was / Spawning snow and pink roses against it”
- Line 12: “There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.”
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The Tangerine
The tangerine that the speaker decides to "peel and portion" partway through the poem represents the plurality of the world: the way that it can be both whole and made up of disparate parts at the same time.
The tangerine is a literal, physical fruit. But it also consists of various different elements: skin, pips, flesh, juice, and so on. Thus despite being one unified thing—a specific kind of fruit—it's also not one unified thing at all!
The tangerine thus reflects the complexity of the world, which, the poem says, is "[i]ncorrigbly plural": stubbornly many things all at once.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 6-7: “I peel and portion / A tangerine and spit the pips”
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“Snow” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
Devices like alliteration, consonance, and assonance draw attention to the richness and variety world by filling the poem with rich, varied language.
This all begins with "room" and "rich" in line 1. These two /r/ sounds elevate the speaker's language, making it sound more intense just as the room suddenly glows with the strangeness of existence. The next line has alliteration too: the gentle sibilance of "Spawning snow" evokes that gentle, hushed snowfall.
In the following stanza, the speaker finds an object that seems to express the "drunkenness of things being various"—that is, the fact that the world is filled with endless variety and diversity. Here, plosive /p/ sounds bring the language to life, and might even make readers hear the tangerine's pips being spat out of the speaker's mouth:
[...] Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feelThe consonance and assonance of /p/ in "spit the pips" adds to the effect, the phrase itself sounds a lot like the action being described.
And in the final stanza, the fricative /f/ sounds of "fire flames" draw readers' attention to yet another thing that stands in stark contrast with the snow outside. They also provide a little hiss of air that might suggest a fire catching in the hearth.
Where alliteration appears in the poem:- Line 1: “room,” “rich”
- Line 2: “Spawning snow”
- Line 6: “plural,” “peel,” “portion”
- Line 7: “pips”
- Line 9: “fire flames,” “sound”
- Line 10: “spiteful,” “supposes”
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Assonance
Unlock all 170 words of this analysis of Assonance in “Snow,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
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Asyndeton
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Consonance
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Enjambment
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Juxtaposition
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Personification
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Repetition
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“Snow” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Bay-window
- Spawning
- Incompatible
- Collateral
- Suddener
- Fancy
- Incorrigibly
- Pips
- For
- Spiteful
- Gay
Bay-window-
(Location in poem: Line 1: “the great bay-window”)
A type of window that protrudes outwardly from a building.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Snow”
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Form
"Snow" consists of three four-line stanzas (a.k.a quatrains). Perhaps the simplicity of the quatrain form relates to the poem's main idea: that the world is both the world (one entity) and made up of seemingly limitless separate elements. The division of the poem into stanzas might speak to the "incorrigibl[e] plural[ity]" of the world. The stanzas are like segments of the tangerine: individual pieces that when put together they make a single poem.
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Meter
The poem doesn't use any regular meter and is best described as being written in free verse.
That said, many lines feature five stressed beats (and others close to that, with four or six). Listen to the second stanza, for example:
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.It's thus possible to think of the poem as using a rough accentual meter, but, to be fair, the stressed beats above are subjective and other readers might scan things differently. This unpredictable sound gives the poem a sense of spontaneity and dynamism, which is kept in check by the regularity of the stanza form (those steady quatrains). This speaks to the mood of the poem, which is one of epiphany and breathless wonder at the complexity of the world. Neat rhythms would probably feel too ordered and unsuited to the subject at hand.
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Rhyme Scheme
As a free verse poem, "Snow" doesn't use a regular rhyme scheme. As with the lack of predictable meter, this feels appropriate for a poem all about the dizzying and surprising variety and "crazi[ness]" of the world.
That said, there is a clear end rhyme in the last stanza though. Line 10's "supposes" chimes neatly with line 12's "roses." This gives the poem a satisfying sound and adds a bit of emphasis and drama to its conclusion.
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“Snow” Speaker
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It's possible to read the speaker of "Snow" as simply being the poet, Louis MacNeice. That said, the speaker is never actually identified in the poem itself. In fact, exactly who the speaker is doesn't really matter; it's the way the speaker's worldview suddenly changes that counts. The speaker could be anyone—any one of us—just going about their daily life when, suddenly, the world reveals itself in all its stubborn, wonderful, irreducible complexity. The speaker feels changed by this experience and presumes that most people, most of the time, don't recognize the strangeness of the world in which they live.
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“Snow” Setting
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The poem takes place on a snowy day. The speaker sees the snow from a room that by all accounts sounds pretty cosy and comfortable: it has a "great bay-window" and a fire "bubbling" away in the hearth. There are "pink roses," against this window as well, which provide a striking contrast with the cold, white snow. In fact, it's the sight of the snow alongside those roses that makes the scene become suddenly "rich" for the speaker. That is, the stark visual juxtaposition between the snow and the roses casts the entire world in a new light. The speaker realizes how diverse, strange, and connected the world is, and this realization depends in large part on the poem's setting.
And yet, there is also a sense that the world never fully reveals itself in the poem. There is "more than glass between the snow and the huge roses," but what the "more" is exactly remains unsaid. This adds to the poem's sense of mystery and wonder.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Snow”
- "Snow" is a deeply philosophical poem that examines the relationship between the individual and the masses, between the subject (the "I") and the Other.
- "Snow" is the simple relation of an immediate, sensory experience.
Literary Context
"Snow" is an early work by Irish poet Louis MacNeice, first published in 1935 in a collection simply titled Poems. It was reputedly inspired by MacNeice's visit to the house of his friend and classical scholar E.R. Dodds. According to Dodds, the roses, tangerine, and snow are all real details from this visit.
MacNeice belonged to a group of writers known (perhaps unfairly) as the Auden Group, named after W.H. Auden, one of the most prominent 20th-century literary figures. Shortly after "Snow," MacNeice wrote "Autumn Journal," a long and celebrated autobiographical poem that expresses worry about the 1930s political landscape. Perhaps the focus of "Snow" on division and connection hints at MacNeice's later exploration of topical issues such as the looming threat of war."Snow" has been named as an important influence by several poets and is specifically referenced in Paul Muldoon's "History." The simplicity of the poem itself (there are no lofty references or elaborate metaphors, for example) suggests that the "drunkenness of things being various" is something to which everyone has access.
That said, the poem has also been the subject of extensive critical debate, which can be broken down into two basic views:
This debate, in turn, has been taken to more broadly represent an argument over whether poetic analysis is too often overly intellectualized. Of course, readers might prefer to see "Snow" as a mixture of both ideas! MacNeice himself had this to say of the poem:
[I]t means exactly what it says; the images here are not voices off, they are bang centre stage, for this is the direct record of a direct experience, the realization of a very obvious fact, that one thing is different from another—a fact which everyone knows but few people perhaps have had it brought home to them in this particular way, i. e. through the sudden violent perception of snow and roses juxtaposed.
Readers might also check out MacNeice's poem "Plurality" for another take on a similar subject.
Historical Context
The 1930s were a time of increasing fear and foreboding for Europe. Fascism and ultra-nationalism were on the rise, with Adolf Hitler coming to power in Germany in 1933. The utter devastation of the First World War was not long in the past, and there was a sense, particularly among artists, writers, and so on, that the notion of human progress was a kind of myth.
MacNeice argued in his 1938 work of poetry criticism/theory, Modern Poetry, in favor of impure poetry—that is, poetry conditioned by the poet’s life and the world around him. This poem's engagement with the world, though, seems more immediate and sensory than determined by its era, and is in a long tradition of art and philosophy that attempts nothing less than to understand the nature of reality itself.
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More “Snow” Resources
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External Resources
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"On Louis MacNeice" — Listen to a podcast created by the London Review of Books about MacNeice's life and work.
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MacNeice's Bioragphy — Learn more about MacNeice's life story via the Poetry Foundation.
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MacNeice in Print and Portrait — Check out some images of the poet himself.
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MacNeice and the BBC — Listen to a short piece by poet Paul Muldoon that looks at MacNeice's work as a radio producer.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Louis MacNeice
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